


Dance with me, my old friend

by amerande



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), First Dance, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Podfic, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Canon, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Tenderness, fluff all the way, it's written but also there's a recorded version is what i'm saying, optional podfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amerande/pseuds/amerande
Summary: During the taxi ride back to the bookshop, Aziraphale considered the many ways in which he’d left the Ritz over the years. The first time: contented and excited to tell Crowley about it, to perhaps share it with him. Several subsequent times: alone, but with the delightful memory of an afternoon or evening basking in Crowley’s company and attention. After that: with Crowley, walking through London, to the bookshop or to a museum, talking and sharing time. Once, eleven years ago: in Crowley’s Bentley for a night of drinking and plotting to avert the apocalypse.This was the first time they’d taken a cab together.(Also includes a podfic link if you prefer to listen!)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 150
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	Dance with me, my old friend

**Author's Note:**

> A pinch-hit gift for lemanosoar in the Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019. The prompt was "I'd love something fluffy and sweet or just a joyful piece with a cute atmosphere, something to squeal about."
> 
> (If you'd prefer a podfic, skip to the end notes and grab a link from there!)

During the taxi ride back to the bookshop, Aziraphale considered the many ways in which he’d left the Ritz over the years. The first time: contented and excited to tell Crowley about it, to perhaps share it with him. Several subsequent times: alone, but with the delightful memory of an afternoon or evening basking in Crowley’s company and attention. After that: with Crowley, walking through London, to the bookshop or to a museum, talking and sharing time. Once, eleven years ago: in Crowley’s Bentley for a night of drinking and plotting to avert the apocalypse.

This was the first time they’d taken a cab together. It was also the first time they’d left hand-in-hand, and he found it quite surpassed all the others for that reason alone. To leave and be unselfconscious of who might be watching, of what they might give away, was a treat as delightful and nourishing as any delicacy he’d ever tasted.

He felt a pulse where their thumbs touched. It was impossible to tell if it was Crowley’s or his own—a steady, gentle _beat beat beat_ of blood through arteries through corporations. A physical manifestation of what was only the truth: how he resonated to Crowley’s presence.

They’d talked all through lunch, but the silence in the cab felt fitting. It carried them through the streets of London and through the door of the bookshop.

(Aziraphale was relieved and so, so grateful that Crowley had not broken the silence by saying that, well, it had been lovely but he really must be off now. It had not occurred to the angel until they were both in the bookshop that it might have been a possibility at all, and his heart thumped with an aftershock of the mere _idea_ of his absence.)

“Wine?” he offered, and Crowley gave an indistinct hum in response, so he let the demon go his own way while he went to the bar cabinet.

When he passed Crowley his wine and sat down and they each raised their glasses, he had the same feeling that he’d had as they sat on the bench after regaining their own corporations: an overwhelming lightness, like the breaking of a seal that let all the potential for joy pour into him. They had already toasted back at the Ritz, but he raised his glass all the same. Crowley mirrored the motion, one eyebrow raised.

“To our side,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley nodded gravely, and they each took a sip, and Aziraphale felt a curious looseness as the reality of it all settled in, _really_ sank down into the bones of his corporation and the bedrock of his understanding.

They were free. He considered it. It was, of course, a freedom _from_. From fear, from interference, from obligation.

Crucially, though, it was also freedom _to_. Freedom to stay on Earth—Earth, safe and whole and delightfully full of humans. Freedom to pursue the dictates of his conscience. To indulge without guilt. Most importantly of all: utter freedom to choose Crowley, now and always and without reservation.

That notion had been equal parts alluring and terrifying for so, so long, but now he need no longer fear. They didn’t have to hold back.

“We did it,” he said, because it seemed fitting to say _something_ to mark the moment, to acknowledge its uniqueness in all of history.

Crowley looked at him, a slow smile spreading lazily across his face.

“Dance with me,” the demon said.

Six thousand years they’d been friends, and Aziraphale could no more have predicted that response than he could have predicted, standing on the walls of Eden, that they’d wind up here. He gaped at Crowley for a moment as he processed the words to be sure he’d understood.

“You know that—” he began, but Crowley cut him off.

“Nobody’s watching—first time in our lives. Dance with me, angel?” Crowley asked again, and this time he’d stood up and was holding one hand out to Aziraphale.

As if he could say _no_ to an offer like that.

Aziraphale took his hand and let himself be led up. Unbidden by him, the phonograph spun to life and quiet music filled the bookshop. Crowley pulled him close, one hand still holding his, the other resting on his shoulder.

It was a simple thing, no real steps or direction, just a slow, gentle revolution as the music played. Crowley slipped one hand down to Aziraphale’s waist and held it comfortably, naturally.

The sensation was entirely new and wholly enthralling. Aziraphale found himself relaxing into it, step by step, drawing a little closer as they turned.

“There, see?” Crowley said without stopping their movement. “Angels _can_ dance. Bet you didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Hardly dancing, this,” Aziraphale said as snobbishly as he could, but Crowley laughed, and that was all right.

“I can dance the gavotte, you know,” he added after a moment.

Crowley tilted his head down to look at him. “No, I didn’t,” he said.

“Well, I can. Learnt it at the end of the nineteenth century.”

“And you never told me?”

“We weren’t really...speaking, then.”

They both considered that for a moment. Crowley stepped a little closer, perhaps as close as he’d ever been—just the gentlest brush of contact as they danced, but it was as wonderfully comforting as nothing Aziraphale had ever known.

“No,” Crowley said, “I suppose we weren’t.”

“We are now, though.”

“Yes, I suppose we are.”

Aziraphale could hear the grin in Crowley’s voice, and he turned his head up to look at him—and stopped in soft surprise. They were near, but now that he looked at Crowley’s face, it felt impossibly, indescribably different. All over, his skin tingled in response to their closeness and the heat from where Crowley held him. He could feel Crowley’s breath against his cheek, smell nothing but the dry, spicy scent of him. Their dance stopped.

Crowley’s smile grew wider as their eyes met. He dropped his head just a little lower, and then Aziraphale knew what was going to happen. Clutching just a little tighter at Crowley’s waist, he rose up to meet that smile, to press his lips against Crowley’s.

They kissed.

At last, Aziraphale understood all the fuss poets and authors made about it. What had always sounded, in theory, perfectly enjoyable was all but overwhelming in practice. Their first kiss had barely broken when Aziraphale leaned in for another one, but he found he was smiling too much to make a proper go of it. So he paused and smiled and felt Crowley’s arms tighten around him.

“Do you know, my dear,” he said, “I do believe that’s the most eloquent thing I’ve ever heard you say?”

“I take great offense at that,” Crowley said, and the demon dipped down again and kissed him.

It was a lucky thing, Aziraphale thought hazily through his giddiness, that he didn’t need to breathe. Staying upright and in human form seemed to be about the most he could possibly ask of himself when so much of his attention was caught up in the feeling of Crowley’s skin against his lips, the warmth of Crowley’s body pressed against his, the pounding of his own pulse in his ears as Crowley’s hands ran up Aziraphale’s back to cradle his head.

They broke apart again and came together again: their third kiss. Where the first had been soft and uncertain, and the second lighthearted, this was deep as the fathomless ocean and felt as long as time. They lingered, and Aziraphale opened his mouth to Crowley’s explorations and tasted him, tasted wine and spice on his tongue and love on his breath. He clung to Crowley’s waist like a shipwrecked man to the last broken spar, but he had no fear of letting go, of falling as far into this love as he could possibly go.

* * *

They walked through the following days like a dream, drifting at peace as they let themselves adjust to this new, impossible reality. The days turned into weeks, and then months, and then together they decided that London was no longer home. Aziraphale’s bookshop had been his shelter, the cocoon he’d built himself to insulate against fears and threats which no longer loomed large. Crowley’s flat had been a haven, a shrine to his independence—an independence which now spiraled wide to include Aziraphale. Neither was right for a shared life, and a shared life was the only kind they wanted.

So they moved to the countryside, to a cottage at the end of what could barely be called a lane, which was hidden from any neighbors by a hill on one side and a stand of birch trees on the other, not far from a drowsy little pond.

By the third day, they’d rearranged the large furniture several times (with the liberal use of miracles) and finally settled on which room ought to be for what (with a few _suggestions_ to the cottage that it find a few extra feet of space for this closet, a slightly higher ceiling for that room, and a master bathroom that had not previously existed at all). That accomplished, Crowley distributed his many plants to advantageous positions throughout the home, and Aziraphale began filling bookshelf after bookshelf. He did it by hand, the human way, because they had nothing but time—and it pleased him to do so.

Crowley had established his music player somewhere in the house, and it played in every room without any respect for whether or not there were speakers pleasant. So wherever Aziraphale went, Crowley’s music went with him for company, and he found he did not mind it. In fact, he was happily humming along as he shelved another part of his collection in the library, dusting and inspecting each book as he pulled it from its moving box and setting aside those in need of extra attention.

As he went about his business, Crowley entered the room and sidled up behind him. Before Aziraphale could turn to see him, the demon’s hands were on him, palms cupped around the top of Aziraphale’s hips. Through them, Aziraphale could feel that Crowley was moving—his hands were sliding over Aziraphale in time with the music, something bright and energetic and as light as Aziraphale’s own mood.

Then he could feel more of Crowley, feel the demon pressed up behind him, and all of him was swaying to the same rhythm, and his hands took firmer hold of Aziraphale and tried to get him to move, too.

He turned, finally, and Crowley was grinning at him, sunglasses nowhere to be seen, barefoot and giddy in their home. Crowley took a step forward, and then another, until Aziraphale was crowded up against the half-full bookshelf with Crowley still moving against him, his hips and legs swaying and moving in a way that might once have made Aziraphale blush. Now, though, it just made him laugh—carefree and joyous. Then Crowley took his hands and coaxed him into an awkward dance, all swinging arms and the slip of stockinged feet on hardwood as they moved without sense or direction, just to feel what it was like to move together.

A golden happiness welled up in Aziraphale’s heart, and he thought it a wonder that he did not burst with it. Instead, he picked up his love—scooped him right up, which startled Crowley into a strangled noise and a desperate grab at his arms, but Aziraphale laughed and held him securely and bent his own head down for a kiss.

Like most of their kisses, the one led to another, and another after that, and Aziraphale found himself with an armful of very eager demon and certain notions of what might come next. He crossed the room, deposited Crowley onto his overstuffed reading chair, knelt down before his love, and set out to please him as best as he was able.

* * *

When life together in the South Downs was no longer a novelty but a long habit as familiar, loved, and well-worn as Aziraphale’s favorite waistcoat, they drove down to the seaside. This wasn’t the first such trip, nor the hundredth, nor the last—it was one of an infinitude, a procession of such trips that stretched from their past, through the present moment, and into a future so long that felt like the best kind of eternity.

They sat on blankets on the rocky beach and ate and drank their way through the hamper Aziraphale had packed, and they watched the seabirds and the other beachgoers and each other.

Aziraphale was thinking of these traditions they had built over their many, many years: favors and miracles, lunches at the Ritz, trips to the sea. Dancing in their home. His memory was not prey to the vagaries and foibles of aging like a human’s would be—that first dance, so many years removed, still shone bright as a star in his mind.

“Why did you do it,” he asked abruptly. “Why did you ask me to dance?”

The demon squinted at him. “Pretty sure I didn’t.”

“Not _now_. The first time.”

“Oh.” Crowley shrugged. “Seemed the thing to do. Kind of—human, I guess.”

“Yes, it is, rather, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. So that was all.”

Aziraphale nodded and they lapsed into silence.

“There’s something I’ve been thinking of,” the angel said after several moments. “Another...human thing.”

Crowley waited. Aziraphale looked down at his hands.

“Marriage,” he said.

Crowley cocked his head to one side in thought. “Are we—not—that is…” He shook his head and tried again. “Isn’t that redundant?”

“Well, I suppose it might be,” Aziraphale said. “But it seems nice.”

“Which parts?”

“What?”

“Which parts,” Crowley repeated. “Which parts seem nice to you?”

“Oh, well—“ Aziraphale thought it over. “Just having...done it, I suppose. We haven’t got much use for guests, and it’s not like the paper really matters. I just...fancy being able to introduce you as my husband.”

“You could do that now,” Crowley said. Aziraphale didn’t mind; he wasn’t arguing against it, not really—just reasoning his way through it all out loud. It was a habit Aziraphale found particularly endearing (not to mention helpful).

“I _could_ ,” he agreed.

“...But?”

“But it wouldn’t be the _same_.”

“Alright, fair enough. So—don’t need a priest, I’m guessing.” Crowley paused and looked at Aziraphale.

He laughed. “No.”

“Great. No priest, no guests, no paper—or if we need paper, it can, y’know, work itself out. What else is there, let’s see…” Crowley leaned back, making a great show of thinking. “Well, biblically I believe we’ve got to leave our Mother and _cleave to_ each other. I’d say we’re on solid ground there. Unless you want to give me one of your ribs so we can be one flesh?”

Aziraphale didn’t even dignify that with a response.

“Which leaves…” Crowley trailed off.

Looking thoughtful, he held out a hand. When Aziraphale took it, the demon pulled their hands back and pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s ring finger. The skin where he kissed grew warm, and then there was a ring there, a solid golden band with a delicate pattern like flames shimmering over its surface, glimmering as though the gold was still melted.

Aziraphale brought his hand close to inspect it and let out a little breath of wonder.

“It’s _beautiful_ ,” he said.

Crowley extended his hand. “Would you make one for me?”

Aziraphle took it, held it reverently, and bent his head to kiss it. When he was done, a golden band of leaves circled Crowley’s finger. There was a shaky intake of breath from the demon, who held his hand up and stared for a long moment.

Then Crowley cleared his throat. “Right. So, rings done. And…” He got to his feet. “I believe a first dance is traditional. Dance with me, angel?”

There was Crowley’s hand, held out to him again—as it seemed to have always been. Aziraphale took it with a smile, and they held each other close.

Music played. Aziraphale couldn’t have said where it came from, but it was soft and splendid.

This wasn’t much of a dance—they barely made a few steps and a turn before they settled for holding each other and swaying. One of Crowley’s arms was about Aziraphale’s waist; his other hand was holding Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale leaned in and tucked his chin over Crowley’s shoulders, savoring the familiar closeness.

“Wherever you go, I’ll go,” Crowley said. His voice was low and quiet, barely a whisper, but his words rang clear as a bell. “And where your home is, my home will be. No person or power in heaven or hell will part me from you.”

His voice quavered on the last line and he paused and squeezed Aziraphale tightly before continuing.

“As long as there’s an Earth, I want to share it with you. And when it’s gone, I’ll share whatever’s next with you, too—whether it’s in this universe or the next.”

There were tears in Aziraphale’s eyes. He willed his voice to be steady as he spoke:

“By this ring and your words, you promise yourself to me,” he said. He hadn’t thought this through, but the words sounded right as he said them. “And by this ring and my words, I promise myself to you. I will cherish you, now and always. I choose you, and I choose to trust in your abiding love.”

The music ended. Crowley’s hands came up to cradle Aziraphale’s face, and they kissed.

“Will that suit, husband?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale kissed him again. “Perfectly, husband mine,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

>  **UPDATE:** I participated in this year's "Fandom Trumps Hate" charity auction and got a podfic made of this! [Check it out here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23002015)
> 
> Huge thanks to [curlycrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlycrowley/pseuds/curlycrowley) for betaing this fic and listening to me brainstorm! 
> 
> There are three small art pieces that go with this, [which you can find here on tumblr](https://thelasthomelyurl.tumblr.com/post/190462610695/dance-with-me-my-old-friend-i-was-lucky-enough-to). 
> 
> The title is in reference to The Magnetic Fields' ["Nothing Matters When We're Dancing"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHL1X0jV0dI) which I a) love and b) will forever associate with our dear ineffable husbands.  
> ([If you want to know what other songs I associate with 'em, I happen to have a playlist. TMF feature heavily.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/13HoS6koycWFpENtC0kZGm?si=RslUs3pFR9SWRX7tjwfJkQ)) 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts down in the comments. :) 
> 
> I have a bunch of other GO fic here under this psuedonym, and you can find me on tumblr as [thelasthomelyurl](https://thelasthomelyurl.tumblr.com/).


End file.
